Cross Boarder, USA/Canada, GMRS Communications

[Lscott]

This is a bit of a off beat topic.

In the past week or so a new GMRS repeater went operational.

https://mygmrs.com/repeater/6815

As you can see it has wide coverage zone, including the Windsor Canada area.

The issue here are the Canadians also have a GMRS service, BUT it's unlicensed and they have NO access to repeaters. If you read the rules it's more like our FRS service. With the coverage zone of the US repeater reaching most of the city of Windsor Canada sooner or later I expect some stations from the Canadian side will try to access the repeater. They would have to use non Industry Canada approved radios to do this. 

My questions are several.

First, if this does occur will the Canadian government go after the stations in Canada, or just ignore it since it's not really their problem? After all the repeater is in the US.

Second, do we as legal GMRS operators in the US allow it and even engage in communications with Canadians? To facilitate their use what do we do if anything when a Canadian station tries to spoof a US call sign in an attempt to make it appear the communications are on the US side?

Third, as legal GMRS operators in the US when in Canada do we bet against the house and try to use the repeater too? There is no cross licensing agreement for GMRS with Canada, there is one for Ham Radio, since their service is unlicensed.

I'm pretty sure what the legal answers are, but from a piratical point of view what do you think? 

[gortex2]

AS you know by the rules its not allowed. What's done is an entirely different matter. I am confident its used where ever it has coverage. Considering a major amount of folks have no license in the US and use GMRS daily I doubt the FCC would even get involved in it. 

[Sshannon]

Interesting question.  I’m tempted to just say let your conscience be your guide, but understand that if we don’t want GMRS to be treated like ham radio, we need to adhere to the rules that separate it from ham radio.

[WRUU653]

Piratical Canadian in the wild  

 

[WRUU653]

1 hour ago, Lscott said:

what do we do if anything when a Canadian station tries to spoof a US call sign in an attempt to make it appear the communications are on the US side?

I don’t think I would know if they didn’t tell me. I don’t make a habit of verifying people’s call signs. I’m also not working for the FCC. Unless I am personally aware of some truly nefarious activity l don’t care if other people jaywalk. That said I’m sure there’s more that I’m not thinking about here and am interested in what others think. Also this repeater owner has a pretty strong penalty for not adhering to the rules.
 

[Sshannon]

A Canadian citizen* can apply for a GMRS license for use within the borders of the United States.  Since location data is prohibited from being sent through a GMRS repeater, you would have no real way of knowing whether they’re in the US or across the border.

 

*As long as they are not a representative of their government.

[Lscott]

2 hours ago, Sshannon said:

Interesting question.  I’m tempted to just say let your conscience be your guide, but understand that if we don’t want GMRS to be treated like ham radio, we need to adhere to the rules that separate it from ham radio.

I would tend to agree. If the Canadians do end up trying to use the repeater as long as they act responsibly I would just let it be. It's up to their government to enforce their rules.  

[Lscott]

32 minutes ago, Sshannon said:

A Canadian citizen* can apply for a GMRS license for use within the borders of the United States.  Since location data is prohibited from being sent through a GMRS repeater, you would have no real way of knowing whether they’re in the US or across the border.

 

*As long as they are not a representative of their government.

That's true, but they still must have a valid US mail address on file in the ULS. That could be nothing more than a P.O. box here.

[Lscott]

55 minutes ago, WRUU653 said:

I don’t think I would know if they didn’t tell me. I don’t make a habit of verifying people’s call signs. I’m also not working for the FCC. Unless I am personally aware of some truly nefarious activity l don’t care if other people jaywalk. That said I’m sure there’s more that I’m not thinking about here and am interested in what others think. Also this repeater owner has a pretty strong penalty for not adhering to the rules.
 

Since I'm not the owner it's up to the real owner, or admin, how they wish to conduct operations on it. I'm just trying to get a feel for what is likely to be the case.

[Sshannon]

2 minutes ago, Lscott said:

That's true, but they still must have a valid US mail address on file in the ULS. That could be nothing more than a P.O. box here.

There are services that exist just for that sake. 

[Lscott]

1 hour ago, WRUU653 said:

Piratical Canadian in the wild  

 

This is MOLSON123 calling MOLSON789.

[wayoverthere]

More pondering...though they can't get licensed in Canada, what if you, as a us citizen, have a license and also have family in Canada that qualify to operate here under your license?

Under us law, it'd appear they're operating legally and it's the Canada gov that they might have an issue with.

[WRQI583]

Or the owner of the repeater could co-phase a couple of yagi's and get the repeater to keep most of its coverage in the USA instead of running onmi-directional antenna(s).

[Sshannon]

36 minutes ago, wayoverthere said:

More pondering...though they can't get licensed in Canada, what if you, as a us citizen, have a license and also have family in Canada that qualify to operate here under your license?

Under us law, it'd appear they're operating legally and it's the Canada gov that they might have an issue with.

Sure - if I had a son-in-law who was a citizen of Canada, he would still be able to use my GMRS radio when he's visiting the states.  Canada wouldn't have any say in the matter and the US government has no regulation prohibiting it.

In fact, if my son-in-law were to come to Montana annually for skiiing or hunting and wanted to get his own US GMRS license, he could do that.  It's only useful in the US, but that's all he would need.

Now if he lived close to the border and used his call sign to communicate to someone in the US the Canadian government might be upset, but that's just common sense.

[Lscott]

1 hour ago, WRQI583 said:

Or the owner of the repeater could co-phase a couple of yagi's and get the repeater to keep most of its coverage in the USA instead of running onmi-directional antenna(s).

That would be a technical solution that would work. The antennas don't have to be phased yagi's. A set of phased verticals could do the same thing. I believe even some commercial radio stations have done this to better target the area they want to serve.

https://www.rfiamericas.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/OA-UHF-high-40942-2.pdf

While this is for HF the same principle can be used at UHF.

https://hamsignal.com/blog/2-element-vertical-phased-array-my-first-attempt

The FCC could impose the above if there were complaints from the Canadians. That does get me thinking, did the repeater owner/group consider this when planing the installation?  I don't think they did. From some conversations I heard some sites were scouted out before picking this one. I'm guessing it was available, conditions were acceptable like cost etc. so that's were it ended up.

[WRUU653]

5 hours ago, Lscott said:

Since I'm not the owner it's up to the real owner, or admin, how they wish to conduct operations on it. I'm just trying to get a feel for what is likely to be the case.

I totally get that and I thought your question and post was a good one. I hope it didn't seem like I was pushing back on it. Thus my comment on the repeater owners strick enforcement rule (he stated he would "fart in the general direction" of people not adhereing to the rules. ). A lighthearted non threatening approach. As long as people are being respectful and polite I'm okay with our Canadian neighbors on the airwaves. 

[Lscott]

3 hours ago, WRUU653 said:

A lighthearted non threatening approach. As long as people are being respectful and polite I'm okay with our Canadian neighbors on the airwaves. 

Yeah, they’re sort of getting a raw deal from their government. I’m guessing, as you said, I don’t think there will be an issue with them on the repeater. 

As a side note they were looking to get a MURS allocation like the US back in 2014. Again the Canadian government backed out on the idea.
 

At least they have good beer there.

[gortex2]

We spent weeks debating over the use of CH19 as a "road channel" as your not allowed to use it above Line A. Everyone laughed and said no one lives north of Line A. Now we are debating a repeater above Line A. Odd

[WQWX838]

If there were to be some kind of interference issue from this repeater? Yes, the FCC would get involved because the ITU looms larger in this situation and coordination in each international ITU region is how things are managed normally. The CB scene is a mess pretty much globally, but this is off topic from the US/Canada border posting about the GMRS repeater. ITU agreements are there to prevent as many issues as possible.

[Lscott]

1 hour ago, gortex2 said:

We spent weeks debating over the use of CH19 as a "road channel" as your not allowed to use it above Line A. Everyone laughed and said no one lives north of Line A. Now we are debating a repeater above Line A. Odd

Actually there are now 4 GMRS repeaters in the Detroit area. Of course all above "Line-A".

[wrci350]

27 minutes ago, Lscott said:

Actually there are now 4 GMRS repeaters in the Detroit area. Of course all above "Line-A".

Are they using 462.650/467.650 or 462.700/467.700?  If not, then your point is what?

[Lscott]

30 minutes ago, wrci350 said:

Are they using 462.650/467.650 or 462.700/467.700?  If not, then your point is what?

There are only 8 repeater frequency pairs available with the usual 5 MHz split. Two are not usable in this area due to Line-A. So out of the remaining 6 there are 4 used by one old and 3 new repeaters leaving 2 left. Out of those 4 there are 3 with a wide, 20 to 25 mile, zone coverage range. After they're gone, the currently unused frequency pairs, then the fun starts with trying to mitigate interference issues with additional repeaters.

[wrci350]

Ah.  So not really "Line A" per se, but "4 out of 6 are in use" (rather than 4 out of 8).  Now I get it!

[Lscott]

On 2/8/2023 at 1:12 PM, WRQI583 said:

Or the owner of the repeater could co-phase a couple of yagi's and get the repeater to keep most of its coverage in the USA instead of running onmi-directional antenna(s).

I tried to simulated a solution like the above but used just two simple vertical dipoles. Since it has to do with antenna modeling, there is another thread on the topic, I put the results there and a link to it here.

https://forums.mygmrs.com/topic/5218-modeling-small-handheld-radio-antennas-and-a-very-brief-primer-on-the-science-behind-the-range-we-get/#comment-52100

 

[tweiss3]

Re-reading the rules for something else, thought of this thread:

 

47 CFR 95.1733(a)(9) Prohibited GMRS Uses: Messages (except emergency messages) to any station in the Amateur Radio Service, to any unauthorized station, or to any foreign station;